Features of Relationships between Temperamental Characteristics in Male and Female Adolescents

Abstract

Aggression, including aggression of adolescents, is a major problem in modern society, but the mechanisms of its development are not clear up today. Researches of mechanisms of aggression development in women are virtually absent. We studied the relationships between temperamental characteristics in male and female adolescents. Aggressiveness index, physical, verbal aggressions, irritability, anxiety, extraversion and neuroticism levels were estimated using Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory, Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Eysenck Personality Inventory. Higher neuroticism, anxiety levels and irritability were found in female adolescents compared with male adolescents, that perhaps due to a greater activity of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis in women. Significant positive correlations between neuroticism and anxiety, and high negative correlations between anxiety and verbal aggression were revealed in male adolescents. Significant positive correlations between neuroticism and physical aggression, neuroticism and irritability, irritability and verbal aggression, verbal aggression and extraversion were revealed in female adolescents. Significant positive correlations between neuroticism and physical aggression, neuroticism and irritability, irritability and verbal aggression in female adolescents make it possible to suggest that female adolescents are more prone to impulsive aggression than male adolescents.